Who is Impacted by Silo-ed Management of Technology and How Can Business Service Management Help?

The businesses / customers as well as the IT organization are impacted if IT is managed and operated in silos. If businesses are not realizing their true potential because IT is unable to deliver on its commitments, then business will likely face losses and this will ultimately impact IT in a negative fashion. It does not suggest that all business enterprises irrespective of their specific business needs should be horizontally integrated. Relationships with outside partners need to be managed in a way that makes sense to satisfy particular business needs.

What can Business Service Management Do to Help?

Business service management or BSM aims to implement end-to-end management for business services provided by the IT service provider with the goal to address the challenges mentioned above. It is important to appreciate that how business service management is implemented depends entirely upon a given organization, the business needs, and the associated challenges. Although, there is a definite set of capabilities that can be achieved by appropriately implementing business service management, these capabilities will vary from implementation to implementation. Some of the capabilities that business service management implementation should focus on building include the following:

Business-IT Integration

Business-IT integration will enable IT to become a value-add business partner. Instead of reacting to emerging business needs, business-IT integration will enable IT to proactively identify new and innovative ways to further enable the core business processes. Business enterprises maximize the IT-enabled growth potential.

Efficient Management of Services

Both business (customer-facing IT services) and technical (supporting) services are optimally managed right from strategy and planning through to transition, operation and continual improvement to ensure that they meet business needs. Efficient service management leads to effective IT and enables effective customer expectation management and results in improved customer satisfaction ratings.

IT Organized Appropriately to Align with Business Needs

If implemented appropriately, BSM implementation will enable IT to identify and agree on the set of organizational principles. These principles should serve as the foundation for building the appropriate organizational structures necessary. Note that over the course of business service management implementation program, the IT organization is continually aligned to better address the particular business needs. This alignment is achieved through small incremental and iterative steps over time.

Greater Traceability Between IT Capabilities and Business Goals

BSM enables the establishment of traceability between business processes, business and technical services right through to lower level technology components. This traceability enables IT to build its capabilities to meet specific business needs.

Greater Transparency

Greater traceability enables visibility into how different business and technical services and other components are performing. This transparency enables IT to be proactive in managing the services it offers.

Clear Definition of Channel(s) Available to the Customer to Engage IT

BSM implementation will ensure that appropriate channels are defined and implemented such that customers are able to place varying types of requests and demands on IT in an effective and efficient manner.

Right Level of Governance

If implemented appropriately, business service management will ensure that appropriate governance is implemented all levels i.e., right from strategy down to implementation and operation. In addition, Continual Service Improvement will ensure that targeted improvement investments are made.